Month: February 2018

Will the ultimate legacy of #MeToo be the creation of a new glass ceiling for women? The hashtag evolved from powerful beginnings into an adversarial wave. It needed care; none was taken. Those who plead for caution in the Deneuve Letter were publicly sandblasted. I understood the thrill of score-settling, but a new kind of gender-specific workplace injury was always likely be to the end result.

Whether care was taken or otherwise, a reactionary corporate collective “punishment beating” of sketchy legal standing that hurts all women in the professions is not the right way to respond. At all. You wouldn’t think that sexual harassment itself was all that difficult to define:

In order to head off the problem coming down the track, Sheryl Sandberg has pulled together MentorHer, a kind of “Pence Rule” Kryptonite – designed to facilitate working relationships that encourage the growth of female junior colleagues into more senior roles. That it appears to hinge on goodwill is an issue. The upside being sold to fearful, risk-averse management is diversity: diverse workplaces perform better!The data is in. The case, however, has been poorly made and largely falls on deaf ears.

the hush following @lemnsissay’s plea for diversity at #futr16 was like the awkward silence of an outlaw walking into a bar in a western…

Even if this idea gains traction, diversity itself has become a problematic monocultural paradigm in its implementation. Worse, racial representation is infamously ignored at the company where Sandberg herself makes her name.

Initiatives like #MentorHer need joined-up thinking to succeed – and it can work, but but only if the performance/ profit case for diverse workplaces is made front and centre, reflected in powerful organisations like Sandberg’s own social media colossus which comes up short year in, year out. Money talks.